Dust Up with the Detective Read Online Free PDF Page B

into the top of the cave.
    “I can’t, Jeremy.” She tried to control her breathing, but now it was coming in rapid, panicked heaves.
    He took her hand, running his thumb over her skin. “Okay. It’s okay,” he soothed.
    His heartbeat was so strong that she could feel it through his grip. Did he hate this as much as she did?
    Jeremy led her back down the tunnel from where they’d come, until he reached a spot wide enough for them both to stand. “Let me take the lead.”
    She nodded, but his voice sounded like it was coming through a can. The world spun around her slightly, forcing her to lean back against the wall and close her eyes. “Just a minute,” she whispered.
    “Are you okay?”
    “I’m fine,” she lied as her head started to throb and a faint wave of light-headedness washed over her. She pulled her hand from his, afraid that it wasn’t just the claustrophobia or the bump to the head that was making her feel adrift.
    She braced herself against the walls of the cave. The earth was cool and damp under her touch, and the dirt had given way to hard rock. The jagged edges scraped her hands, but the pain made her come back to herself. Lifting her hand, she wiped a speckle of blood from her palm.
    Jeremy took her face in his hands. “You’re fine. Everything will be okay. You’re safe with me.”
    In their little cocoon of warm yellow light, and wrapped in his hands, she believed him. She looked up into his face. She focused on the green depths of his eyes, blocking out everything else around her. After a while her breathing slowed as he caressed her face, moving a stray hair back from her neck.
    “We won’t have to be in here much longer,” he whispered. “He has to be close.”
    Jeremy’s warm fingertips brushed the skin right under her bottom lip, his touch making the cold rock beneath her feel that much cooler. Leaning in, he stole her lips, kissing her with a tenderness far deeper than the mine.
    Everything around her disappeared. There was only him. His mouth on hers. The luscious texture of his tongue as it brushed over the curve of her lip, lightly caressing hers. He flicked his tongue, making her thighs tense, warmth rise from her core and her thoughts rush to the other places his mouth could explore.
    His hands roamed down her neck, over her curves and down her hips. He pulled her against him, pressing her against his responding body. She didn’t know what it was. The fever with which he touched her, her long drought from masculine contact. Whatever it was, she kissed him back with a ravenous hunger. It felt—
    From somewhere deep behind them, near the entrance of the cave, came the sound of a crackling radio. The high-pitch static cut through the air and brought Blake back to reality.
    Jeremy jerked with the sound. “I... I...shouldn’t have done that,” he stammered, wiping his lips with the back of his hand. “I just meant to make you feel better. I’m sorry.”
    “You’re right. You shouldn’t have.” She stepped away from him and out of the light in an attempt to cover the hurt that must have shown on her face. He wasn’t the only one who had made a mistake. She shouldn’t have let him kiss her. Now everything was going to get confusing.
    “Let’s go back. I think this way is blocked—it’s getting too narrow.” Entirely too narrow, as far as she was concerned. She couldn’t be this close to him.
    He started to say something but stopped. “Okay.”
    She led the way back, and, as they neared the Y, a warm breeze blew in from the entrance, making her aware of how cold it was in the cave. Between their moving and the kiss, she hadn’t noticed the icy chill. If Robert was hurt somewhere in there, was it possible that he could have become hypothermic? If he couldn’t move, in the damp cold of the mountain’s underbelly it wouldn’t have taken long.
    She walked a little faster down the right branch of the tunnel, moving ahead of Jeremy just enough that she was outside